My Genealogy Hound

JOHN PETER SCHNEIDER, president of the Birmingham Fire Insurance company, Pittsburgh, is the second of the eight children of John Adam and Elizabeth (Ziegler) Schneider, and was born at Neuengrauen, now in Prussia, Feb. 22, 1830. His grandfather, John George Schneider, and father were millwrights and millers, trades also followed by his eldest brother, Andrew. The only members of the family to come to the United States are John Peter and one brother, John Nicholas, a farmer residing near Yorkville, Ill. The subject of this memoir began to learn cabinet-making in his native land, and when seventeen years old came to Pittsburgh, where he finished the trade. For thirty years he was employed in a glass factory as box maker and packer. In 1864 he joined the 5th P. H. A., and served nearly a year in the defenses about Washington. He was one of the original stockholders of the Birmingham Insurance company, has been a director five years, and is now serving his third term as president. He is a member of the F. & A. M., G. A. R, A. O. U. W. and I. O. O. F. He has always been a republican, his first vote being cast for Gen. Fremont, and for two years he served in the borough council of Birmingham. He is a member of the First G. E. Church of Pittsburgh. In 1854 Mr. Schneider married Dorothea, daughter of George and Fredericka Maul, all natives of the .same locality as himself, and their children are named, in order of birth, Elizabeth, Frederick, Mary (Mrs. Henry Liesfeld), Fredericka and Louis P., all living in Pittsburgh.